Halfway between Milan and Turin, in a little hollow below a glacial morain, with the foothills of the Italian Alps providing the distant horizon, sits the monastery of Bose, one of the most important religious foundations in Italy since the Second Vatican Council. On the day the Council closed, December 8, 1965, Enzo Bianchi, a 21-year-old layman, began to live a monastic life in an abandoned farm house. It would be only in August 1968 that three others decided to join him at Bose. One of them was a pastor in the Swiss Reformed Church, and one of them was a woman. With them two of the chief characteristics of the monastic community of Bose were established: it would be ecumenical in membership and would include both men and women. The experiment had to survive the opposition of the local bishop, but thanks to the support of the cardinalarchbishop of Turin, the community survived and grew and eventually won the formal approval of a later bishop.[1]

The community has grown to number over eighty brothers and sisters of various Christian traditions, and receives thousands of visitors annually.